DOCSLIB.ORG

THE GREEN PARADOX Rates Must Be Slowed Down

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
THE GREEN PARADOX Rates Must Be Slowed Down Introductory Debate THE GREEN PARADOX rates must be slowed down. The resource owners must be prompted to temporarily leave more carbon underground. HANS-WERNER SINN Professor of Economics and Public Finance, Those convinced that with the brave new technolo- University of Munich; gies proudly displayed in many newspapers’ spe- President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research cial sections we can avert climate change should specify how they would move resource owners to Environmental policy must be turned on its head: extract less fossil fuel. And that is precisely the instead of mulling over for the thousandth time about sticking point. Politics so far exhibits not the slight- which technical measures can be applied to reduce est glimmer of thinking in this direction. From the carbon dioxide emissions, we should turn to the core Environmental Agency through the Greens to the question of how to induce the resource owners to relevant European Commission there is not a thing leave more carbon underground, as that is the sole on the matter. Even science itself overlooks the possible way to solve the climate problem. issue. Energy models depicting the long-term extraction path of fossil fuel resources do not con- The simple but usually overlooked fact is: other than cern themselves with the climate. Climate-theoret- the useful but limited afforestation efforts, there are ical models, in turn, do not concern themselves only two ways to curb the accumulation of carbon with the extraction of such resources; they are in dioxide in the atmosphere and, with it, slow down fact atemporal models that, by their very nature, global warming. We either temporarily refrain from are not in a position to analyse decision issues that extracting carbon from the ground, or we stuff it have an intertemporal dimension. Only now, back into the ground after having extracted its ener- thanks to the influence of the current German gy. All the technical endeavours to develop alterna- debate, a bit of movement is becoming apparent in tive technologies and all economic incentive systems the model front. to curb the greenhouse effect must subordinate themselves to this fundamental fact. This silence goes hand in hand with the acknowl- edged difficulty of being able to do something in Bringing carbon dioxide back underground is easier this regard at all. What we in Europe and Germany said than done. One third of the primary energy in have set in motion with untold billions invested is the original fuel will be consumed by scrubbing CO2 geared at gradually reducing demand for fossil fuels from the exhaust and subsequently compressing it by developing alternative energy sources and strate- into a liquid. On top of that, the amount of storage gies. The range of initiatives goes from biofuels volume required is gargantuan, as each carbon atom through wind power to better insulating homes and has been joined by two oxygen atoms upon combus- capping vehicles’ CO2 emissions. The measures to tion – and they all need to be stored.Thus, in the case reduce consumption exert an increasingly stronger of anthracite coal more than five times as much vol- downward pressure upon the world’s fossil fuel mar- ume is required as the original fuel occupied under- ket price and dampen the rate of increase in such ground, while in the case of crude oil the proportion prices. is more than three-fold. According to estimates by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Resource owners regard this development with con- Change), the Earth’s depleted coal mines and oil and cern. They rightly fear the erosion of the rate of cap- gas deposits will offer room for only some 600 giga- ital gains on the resources still in situ, moving them tons of carbon, barely one tenth of the recoverable to react by bringing forward their extraction plans carbon resources (6,500 gigatons). For that reason, if and converting a larger portion of their wealth into we are to curb climate change, carbon extraction cash and securing it as financial capital. They thus CESifo Forum 3/2009 10 Introductory Debate increase their fossil fuel supply when demand for the detriment of generations far in the future finds them decreases. This is the green paradox: environ- neither economic nor ethical justification. What we mental policies that turn increasingly greener over need is a measured green policy that slows down time operate like announced expropriations. They resource extraction and, with it, global warming, but prompt resource owners to try to escape this by the green paradox shows that this goal cannot be accelerating extraction of their fossil fuels, which in achieved with the policies currently in place in turn speeds up the warming of the planet. Europe. The question is then, what brings us truly closer to the goal? Small wonder then that the massive efforts of Europeans have delayed the peaking of the world’s If a steadily greener policy accelerates resource carbon dioxide emissions curve to the future. In fact, extraction, it may be worth thinking about a green they have not been able to cause even the tiniest dip policy that turns to pale green as time goes by. Such in this curve. a policy would exert much higher pressure on prices at the beginning but let up gradually over time, with By saving ever more energy we are raising fears of the effect that world market prices would drop the future among resource owners and leading them quickly to a fairly low level only to rise afterwards at to increase the extraction rate. This has been music a steadily increasing rate. Climate change would be in the ears of Americans, Chinese and all other envi- slowed down, as intended. ronmental sinners. They have enjoyed the resulting lower energy prices and raised their consumption by But that is unfortunately only a theoretical solution even more than we have reduced ours. that is well nigh impossible to attain, as a steadily less green policy would have difficulty gaining credibility Some observers pin their hopes on a different effect: among the resource owners. The many proposals that the green policies push the price of fossil fuels in concerning the long-term goals of climate policy the world market so far down that they fall below the made by politicians all go in the opposite direction. extraction costs, making extraction unprofitable. Energy consumption is to be reduced a little at the Demand would then drop, as green policies intend. beginning but with increasing zeal as time progress- This hope is baseless, however, because, like old es. From the G8 Summit at Toyako in July 2008, in Rembrandts, resource prices are not driven by cost which the participating countries committed to a but by scarcity, and these hover always far above the 50 percent reduction goal up to 2050, to the ludicrous extraction costs. That is even now the case, in the proclamations of the German Left Party, who want midst of the dramatic fall in prices triggered by the to reduce emissions by 90 percent by 2050, policies current economic crisis. With oil prices slightly below follow the same pattern. The largest reduction 60 dollars per barrel, the extraction costs including efforts are to be made in the far future, while the cur- exploration in the Gulf (but not mining rights, which rent generations are largely spared. Politicians can- are part of the profit) amount to around one to one- not do otherwise, alas, as they do not want to inflict and-a-half dollars, and even the extraction of the the pain of immediate reductions upon their voters. Canadian tar sands costs, including exploration, no The year 2050 is so far in the future that the boldest more than 15 dollars. In due course, fossil fuel prices policy proposals can be made now without scaring will steadily increase as the resources become voters off. After all, the onus will fall later on other scarcer. At the same time, extraction will progress in citizens and other politicians who will have to tight- the direction of increasing extraction costs, as en their belts. The consequence of this delaying poli- resource owners save interest costs by beginning with cy is that the resource owners will move forward the the sites that are more easily accessible. Presumably, extraction of their resources. The quantities that the however, there will never be a point when extraction politicians announce for future restriction spring costs overtake product prices – or even come near from the ground all the more copiously today. them. An environmental policy based upon pushing prices below production costs would need a big ham- An environmental policy subjected to the con- mer. Marginal measures as those currently in force straints of democratic discussion and that limits itself are plainly insufficient for that purpose. to influencing the demand for fossil fuels cannot per- suade resource owners that the price of their prod- This is just as well so, as the argument for perma- ucts will be less affected in the far future than now or nently sealing off part of the resources still in situ to in the near future. On the contrary, the resource 11 CESifo Forum 3/2009 Introductory Debate owners will be plagued by the fear that, as the plan- such a Super-Kyoto system, given that it has been et becomes warmer and the resulting climate dam- working intensively towards such a goal for several age more apparent, this policy will be tightened up years. But it will probably fail again, as the road to an even further. As a result, it can hardly be expected all-encompassing consumption cap is still far away.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Cesifo Working Paper No. 5385 Category 10: Energy and Climate Economics June 2015
    The Green Paradox: A Supply-side View of the Climate Problem Hans-Werner Sinn CESIFO WORKING PAPER NO. 5385 CATEGORY 10: ENERGY AND CLIMATE ECONOMICS JUNE 2015 An electronic version of the paper may be downloaded • from the SSRN website: www.SSRN.com • from the RePEc website: www.RePEc.org • from the CESifo website: www.CESifoT -group.org/wpT ISSN 2364-1428 CESifo Working Paper No. 5385 The Green Paradox: A Supply-side View of the Climate Problem Abstract Why have policies aimed at reducing the demand for carbon not succeeded in slowing down global carbon extraction and CO2 emissions, and why have carbon prices failed to increase over the last three decades? This comment argues that this is because of the Green Paradox, i.e. – (the anticipation of sales by resource owners who try to pre-empt the destruction of their markets by green policies.) – Reviewing some of the conditions under which strong and weak versions of the Green Paradox may emerge, it is argued that there is little hope that green replacement technologies will impose hard price constraints that would keep long-run extraction within a fixed carbon budget and that, therefore, even strong versions of the paradox cannot easily be avoided. JEL-Code: O130, Q320, Q540, H230. Keywords: carbon, environmentalism, back stop, oil prices. Hans-Werner Sinn Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich Poschingerstrasse 5 Germany – 81679 Munich [email protected] The climate problem is one of mankind’s biggest challenges. Averting disaster requires nothing less than worldwide collective policy action.
    [Show full text]
  • Snakes in the Greenhouse Does Increased Natural Gas Use Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Coal Consumption?
    Energy Research & Social Science 38 (2018) 53–57 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy Research & Social Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss Perspectives Snakes in The Greenhouse: Does increased natural gas use reduce carbon T dioxide emissions from coal consumption? ⁎ Patrick Trent Greinera, , Richard Yorka, Julius Alexander McGeeb a University of Oregon, United States b Portland State University, United States ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Since natural gas emits less carbon than does coal per unit of electricity generation, some analysts suggest Natural gas natural gas will help to mitigate climate change. However, sociological research has found that the substitution CO2 emissions of one natural resource for another often does not happen as anticipated because of political and economic Displacement factors. Here, we analyze cross-national time-series data to examine the connection between growth in emissions Energy from natural gas consumption and changes in emissions from coal use, controlling for several structural factors. We find that CO2 emissions from natural gas sources do not displace CO2 emissions from coal. These results cast doubt on whether the growing use of natural gas is likely to help substantially reduce CO2 emissions. 1. Introduction Social science research examining the effectiveness with which newly introduced technologies or resources, such as fuels, displace es- Natural gas produces lower carbon emissions than coal per unit of tablished ones has found that displacement does not typically occur as electricity generation [1]. Citing this fact, some policy-makers, energy expected or intended, if, indeed, it occurs at all. This phenomenon – analysts, and environmental scientists argue that increasing production which has variously been termed the paperless office paradox [12,13] of natural gas will suppress coal use and thereby help to curtail global and the displacement paradox [6,14,15]– has been noted in the failure climate change [2–4].
    [Show full text]
  • Handbook of Macroeconomics,Volume2b © 2016 Elsevier B.V
    CHAPTER 24 Environmental Macroeconomics J. Hassler*,†,{, P. Krusell*,†,{,§, A.A. Smith, Jr.§,¶ * Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES), Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden †University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden { CEPR, London, United Kingdom § NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States ¶ Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States Contents 1. Introduction 1895 2. Limited Natural Resources and Sustainability Concerns 1899 2.1 Prices and Quantities in Markets for Finite Resources 1901 2.1.1 The Hotelling Result: The Price Equation in a Baseline Case 1901 2.1.2 Prices and Quantities in Equilibrium: Using a Planning Problem 1902 2.1.3 Extraction Costs 1902 2.2 Confronting Theory with Data 1903 2.3 An Application: Fossil Energy 1905 2.3.1 Accounting for Input Saving Using US Data 1906 2.3.2 A Positive Model of Energy Supply and Demand with a Finite Resource 1908 2.3.3 Endogenous Energy-Saving Technical Change 1910 2.3.4 Takeaway from the Fossil-Energy Application 1912 3. Climate Change: The Natural-Science Background 1912 3.1 The Climate 1913 3.1.1 The Energy Budget 1913 3.1.2 Nonlinearities and Uncertainty 1917 3.1.3 Ocean Drag 1918 3.1.4 Global Circulation Models 1920 3.2 Carbon Circulation 1923 3.2.1 Carbon Sinks and Stores 1923 3.2.2 Human Influence on Carbon Circulation 1924 3.2.3 The Reserves of Fossil Fuel 1925 3.2.4 A Linear Carbon Circulation Model 1926 3.2.5 Reduced-Form Depreciation Models 1927 3.2.6 A Linear Relation Between Emissions and Temperature 1928 3.3 Damages 1930 3.3.1 Nordhaus's Approach 1931 3.3.2 Explicit Damage Aggregation 1933 3.3.3 Top-Down Approaches 1934 3.3.4 Remarks 1935 3.3.5 The Operational Approach: A Direct Relation 1937 4.
    [Show full text]
  • Carbon Taxes, Oil Monopoly and Petrodollar Recycling
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Marz, Waldemar; Pfeiffer, Johannes Working Paper Carbon Taxes, Oil Monopoly and Petrodollar Recycling ifo Working Paper, No. 204 Provided in Cooperation with: Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich Suggested Citation: Marz, Waldemar; Pfeiffer, Johannes (2015) : Carbon Taxes, Oil Monopoly and Petrodollar Recycling, ifo Working Paper, No. 204, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, Munich This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/123112 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich Carbon Taxes, Oil Monopoly and Petrodollar Recycling Waldemar Marz Johannes Pfeiffer Ifo Working Paper No.
    [Show full text]
  • Paradoxes Situations That Seems to Defy Intuition
    Paradoxes Situations that seems to defy intuition PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 07:26:17 UTC Contents Articles Introduction 1 Paradox 1 List of paradoxes 4 Paradoxical laughter 16 Decision theory 17 Abilene paradox 17 Chainstore paradox 19 Exchange paradox 22 Kavka's toxin puzzle 34 Necktie paradox 36 Economy 38 Allais paradox 38 Arrow's impossibility theorem 41 Bertrand paradox 52 Demographic-economic paradox 53 Dollar auction 56 Downs–Thomson paradox 57 Easterlin paradox 58 Ellsberg paradox 59 Green paradox 62 Icarus paradox 65 Jevons paradox 65 Leontief paradox 70 Lucas paradox 71 Metzler paradox 72 Paradox of thrift 73 Paradox of value 77 Productivity paradox 80 St. Petersburg paradox 85 Logic 92 All horses are the same color 92 Barbershop paradox 93 Carroll's paradox 96 Crocodile Dilemma 97 Drinker paradox 98 Infinite regress 101 Lottery paradox 102 Paradoxes of material implication 104 Raven paradox 107 Unexpected hanging paradox 119 What the Tortoise Said to Achilles 123 Mathematics 127 Accuracy paradox 127 Apportionment paradox 129 Banach–Tarski paradox 131 Berkson's paradox 139 Bertrand's box paradox 141 Bertrand paradox 146 Birthday problem 149 Borel–Kolmogorov paradox 163 Boy or Girl paradox 166 Burali-Forti paradox 172 Cantor's paradox 173 Coastline paradox 174 Cramer's paradox 178 Elevator paradox 179 False positive paradox 181 Gabriel's Horn 184 Galileo's paradox 187 Gambler's fallacy 188 Gödel's incompleteness theorems
    [Show full text]
  • The Green Paradox and Learning-By-Doing in the Renewable Energy Sector
    The Green Paradox and Learning-by-doing in the Renewable Energy Sector Daniel Nachtigall and Dirk Rübbelke April 2013 BC3 WORKING PAPER SERIES 2013-9 The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) is a Research Centre based in the Basque Country, which aims at contributing to long-term research on the causes and consequences of Climate Change in order to foster the creation of knowledge in this multidisciplinary science. The BC3 promotes a highly-qualified team of researchers with the primary objective of achieving excellence in research, training and dissemination. The Scientific Plan of BC3 is led by the Scientific Director, Prof. Anil Markandya. The core research avenues are: Adaptation to and the impacts of climate change Measures to mitigate the amount of climate change experienced International Dimensions of Climate Policy Developing and supporting research that informs climate policy in the Basque Country This Working paper has been produced under the Low Carbon Programme initiative: http://www.lowcarbonprogramme.org/ The BC3 Working Paper Series is available on the internet at http://www.bc3research.org/lits_publications.html Enquiries (Regarding the BC3 Working Paper Series): Prof. Sérgio H. Faria Email: [email protected] www.bc3research.org The opinions expressed in this working paper do not necessarily reflect the position of Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) as a whole. Note: If printed, please remember to print on both sides. Also, perhaps try two pages on one side. The Green Paradox and Learning-by-doing in the Renewable Energy Sector Daniel Nachtigall* and Dirk Rübbelke** We investigate the effect of climate policies on fossil fuel use in the presence of a clean alternative technology that exhibits learning-by-doing.
    [Show full text]
  • 2012 Print Publication
    INNOVATION Table of Contents Letter from the Provost 3 B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences 4 College of Applied Science & Technology 32 College of Health Sciences & Technology 48 College of Imaging Arts & Sciences 54 College of Liberal Arts 70 College of Science 96 Saunders College of Business 142 Golisano Institute for Sustainability 152 Kate Gleason College of Engineering 162 National Technical Institute for the Deaf 182 Other Degree Granting Units 214 The newly constructed Goli- campuses every day. From cumulative body of schol- sano Institute for Sustain- arship achievements con- ability is a state-of-the art daily operations to its cut- tinue to build upon RIT’s ting edge collaborative re- legacy through innova- and experiential learning. search spaces and technol- tion and academic growth. From its construction to ogy support labs, it stands The challenges they have the teaching taking place as one of the most success- overcome and the oppor- inside, the LEED-platinum ful of its kind. tunities they embrace will building emulates the inno- be the driving force toward vative nature of our faculty, In the same token, this a more sustainable and who bring their talents and report serves to open the prosperous future. focused dedication to our door to our faculty, whose Message from the Provost The teacher/scholar mod- impact national and interna- el at RIT has never been tional industry, and develop stronger, thanks to the new technologies which are commitment of our fac- improving and saving lives. ulty, who are engaged in Students who are engaged in research and scholarship these activities will go on to which is changing the way become engaged global citi- we interact with each other zens imbued with a passion and our world.
    [Show full text]
  • Should We Be Worried About the Green Paradox? Announcement Effects of the Acid Rain Program∗
    Should we be worried about the Green Paradox? Announcement Effects of the Acid Rain Program∗ Corrado Di Mariay Ian Langez Edwin van der Werfx University of Birmingham University of Stirling Wageningen University Revised version: May 10, 2012 Preliminary: please do not quote without permission. Comments welcome. Abstract This paper presents the first empirical test of the green paradox hypothesis, according to which well-intended but imperfectly implemented policies may lead to detrimental environmental outcomes due to supply side responses. We use the introduction of the Acid Rain Program in the U.S. as a case study. The theory predicts that owners of coal deposits, expecting future sales to decline, would supply more of their resource between the announcement of the Acid Rain Program, and its implementation; moreover, the incentive to increase supply would be stronger for owners of high-sulfur coal. This would, all else equal, induce an increase in sulfur dioxide emissions. Using data on prices, heat input and sulfur content of coal delivered to U.S. power plants, we find strong evidence of a price decrease, some indication that the amount of coal used might have increased, and no evidence that the announcement of the Acid Rain Program lead the use of higher sulfur coal. Overall, our evidence suggests that while the mechanism indicated by the theory might be at work, market conditions and concurrent regulation, prevented a green paradox from arising. These results have implications for the design of climate policies. JEL Classification:
    [Show full text]
  • List of Paradoxes 1 List of Paradoxes
    List of paradoxes 1 List of paradoxes This is a list of paradoxes, grouped thematically. The grouping is approximate: Paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only those instances that have been termed paradox by at least one source and which have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Logic • Barbershop paradox: The supposition that if one of two simultaneous assumptions leads to a contradiction, the other assumption is also disproved leads to paradoxical consequences. • What the Tortoise Said to Achilles "Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down...," also known as Carroll's paradox, not to be confused with the physical paradox of the same name. • Crocodile Dilemma: If a crocodile steals a child and promises its return if the father can correctly guess what the crocodile will do, how should the crocodile respond in the case that the father guesses that the child will not be returned? • Catch-22 (logic): In need of something which can only be had by not being in need of it. • Drinker paradox: In any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks. • Paradox of entailment: Inconsistent premises always make an argument valid. • Horse paradox: All horses are the same color. • Lottery paradox: There is one winning ticket in a large lottery. It is reasonable to believe of a particular lottery ticket that it is not the winning ticket, since the probability that it is the winner is so very small, but it is not reasonable to believe that no lottery ticket will win.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Green Paradox Thomas Sterner Sustainable Development
    “Green Paradoxes” Paris 2015 and Beyond Cooling the Climate Debate Cees Withagen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and CESifo) In collaboration with Rick van der Ploeg (Oxford) Partly based on: F. van der Ploeg and C. Withagen (2015): “Global Warming and the Green Paradox: A Review of the Adverse Effects of Climate Policies”, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 9, pp. 285-303, 2015 Pricing carbon Curbs fossil fuel demand Switches demand from CO2 intensive to less CO2 intensive fossil fuel Substitutes renewables for fossil fuel Leads to more fossil fuel left in the crusat of the earth Increases attractiveness of CCS Moves directed technical progress to green growth Green Paradoxes Well-intended policies may lead to adverse outcomes. What if a carbon tax is not implemented, or does not reflect the social cost of carbon? backstops (renewables) are subsidized? Hans Werner Sinn Green Paradox: counter- productivity of green policies Sinn, H.-W. (2008). “Public policies against global warming: a supply-side approach”, International Tax and Public Finance, 15, 360-394. Focus on demand for carbon ignores supply of carbon. Green Paradoxes Weak: initial extraction goes up. Strong: green welfare goes down. Super strong: social welfare goes down. Hotelling Hotelling with backstop price p p ' T’ T time Stock-dependent extraction cost not too high backstop cost Cost differential b− GST( ( )) b − G(S0 ) Social cost of carbon D'(E00+ S - S(T)) / ρ ST S0 remaining stock ST( ) Comparative statics Lower backstop price lowers MB: Higher remaining stock If global warming is acute: Higher remaining stock More patience: Higher remaining stock Additional issues Upward sloping supply of renewables Dirty backstops Imperfect substitutability Capital accumulation and economic development Multiple countries/regions Imperfect competition.
    [Show full text]
  • From Citizens to Consumers: the Countercultural Roots of Green Consumerism
    From Citizens to Consumers: The Countercultural Roots of Green Consumerism A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Philip A. Wight August 2013 ©2013 Philip A. Wight. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled From Citizens to Consumers: The Countercultural Roots of Green Consumerism by PHILIP A. WIGHT has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Kevin Mattson Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT WIGHT, PHILIP A., M.A. August 2013, History From Citizens to Consumers: The Countercultural Roots of Green Consumerism Director of thesis: Kevin Mattson When did American environmentalism shift from a focus on collective political action to an obsession with personal lifestyles? This thesis investigates three distinct bodies of environmental thought spanning the 1950s and the mid-1970s to answer this question. The three eco-political philosophies studied here are liberal, eco-socialist, and countercultural environmentalism. The heart of this thesis is the debate among key environmental thinkers—John Kenneth Galbraith, Stewart Brand, and Barry Commoner—concerning the role of individual consumers and the importance of public policy. This debate can be viewed as supply-side (producers) versus demand-side (consumers) environmentalism. This thesis argues America’s modern paradigm of libertarian, demand-side environmentalism and green consumerism stems from specific values, ideas, lifestyles, and worldviews representative of American counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. In championing individual consumer choice, contemporary environmentalism has largely rejected liberal and eco-socialist prescriptions of collective political action and social democratic governance.
    [Show full text]
  • Download PDF (73.9
    Index Titles of publications are shown in italics. Aaron, H. 175 Atkinson, G. 25, 27, 45, 85, 337, 342, 408, 409 abrupt climate change 95 Atrostic, B.K. 180 accounting 336, 337 Australia Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA) experimental land accounts 329–31 320–21, 329 social discount rates 150 experimental land accounts, Australia axiology and welfarism 161–2 329–31 Aylward, B. 457 wealth accounting 25–38 Azar, C. 152 see also environmental accounting Acemoglu, D. 257, 273 Babiker, M.H. 247 Acid Rain Program, US 455 Baker, M.B. 468 adaptation to climate change 463–73 Baldwin, R.E. 271, 402 adaptive cycle 93–4 Banzhaf, S. 74, 75 adaptive expectations and increasing returns Barrett, S. 424 306 Barro, R.J. 35 adaptive management 49–50, 98–100, 108–19, Basic Needs movement 222 169 Basu, K. 126, 127 and human excellence 119–21 Baudrillard, J. 288 Adger, W.N. 96, 193, 465 Baumgärtner, S. 42 Adriaanse, A. 63 Beckerman, W. 43, 254 ageing population 300 Benarroch, M. 407 Agenda 21 280, 436, 437, 551, 552, 553 benign problems 115 Aghion, P. 257 Bennett, J. 176 agriculture 517–29 Bentham, Jeremy 218 and biodiversity conservation 523–4 Bergman, L. 182 GM crops 525–7 Bernanke, B.S. 241 organic versus non-organic 521–3 Berrens, R.P. 167, 172 traditional versus modern 519–21 Berry, J. 554 water usage 506, 509–10, 511–13 Bethel New Life, Inc. 200 Agyeman, J. 189, 190, 193, 194–5, 200 Betsill, M. 561 aid 451 Biggs, D. 99 Allen, M.R. 468, 533 biocapacity 371–2 Alston, D.
    [Show full text]